He stepped inside and through the metal detectors, monitored by two Vatican police officers. In their blue uniforms, the Gendarmes wore a Glock 17 on their side holsters as they waved tourists through.
Sam and Zara pushed forward, through the swathes of tourists. Passing the Atrium of the Corazze on the left, and crossing the Atrium with its Four Gates, they entered the Courtyard of the Pigna. Sam recalled learning that the courtyard was built to connect the Palace of the Innocent with the Sistine Chapel. There were three levels, joined by elegant stairways and flanked by galleries characterized by pilasters surmounted by broad arches. Both the paving and the galleries were slightly angled towards the Sistine Chapel, so that from the papal apartments the courtyard looked even bigger than it actually was.
He turned to the left and stepped through the second archway into a quiet courtyard. Zara glanced at him, her face showing her unconscious disappointment to go all this way and skip the Sistine Chapel. At the end of the courtyard two Pontifical Swiss Guards protected a wooden doorway. At a guess, that doorway led to the real Vatican City. The non-tourist city, where the smallest city state in the world performed the sometimes mundane and everyday tasks of running the state. They wore the traditional dress uniform of blue, red, orange and yellow with a distinctly renaissance appearance.
Bodyguards to the Pope, the Pontifical Swiss Guards were maintained by the Holy See and responsible for the safety of the Pope, including the security of the Apostolic Palace. Both men were equipped with traditional halberds, as well as modern firearms. Since the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in 1981, a much stronger emphasis had been placed on the guard's non-ceremonial roles, and had seen enhanced training in unarmed combat and small arms. Recruits to the guards must be unmarried Swiss Catholic males between 19 and 30 years of age who have completed basic training with the Swiss Armed Forces. They served as the de facto military of Vatican City. Established in 1506 under Pope Julius II, the Pontifical Swiss Guard is among the oldest military units in continuous operation.
Sam smiled at both men. “I’m sorry to interrupt. My name is Sam Reilly, and I need to speak with Mr. Testimonium Architectus.”
Both men shot glances at each other, which suggested they’d been placed in an unexpected and dangerous situation. Sam sighed in relief. If they’d never heard of the name they would have told him so and dismissed him. Their hesitation was nothing but confirmation the man was inside. Each of the guards appeared uncomfortable. One lowered his right hand, possibly in preparation of retrieving his pistol.
Sam stood his ground. Speaking with the authority of a man used to leading, he said, “Very urgent business, gentlemen. The sands of time are quite literally being washed away.”
The two guards made a quiet, and rapid exchange of words in their own language. One then disappeared behind an archway at the end of the room, while the second stepped forward. “Please wait here while we talk to our superiors.”
Sam smiled, warmly. “Thank you.”
A moment later, a second guard arrived and took the place of the one who had disappeared. A total of six minutes went by before the original guard returned with a different man.
He wore a robe of dark blue. His brown hair was thick and cut short. His blue eyes were intense, like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, but his smile was warm and kindly. He could have been a high ranking member of the clergy, but his age quickly made Sam doubt it. The man might have been in his mid-forties, but no older. Years of a sedentary and learned lifestyle had turned his once muscular physique into adipose. Underneath which, strength and speed appeared to have remained. He held his posture well, like a boxer. Despite the maximum age limit being set as 30 years, his belt bore the yellow, red, and orange insignia of the Pontifical Swiss Guard.
Sam swallowed, hard.
His problems had just evolved into something far more dangerous.
The stranger inserted an iron key into the heavy wooden door and unbolted the latch. “Mr. Reilly, you and Dr. Delacroix are to come through immediately. I’ve been expecting you for some time, now, and I don’t like waiting.”
Chapter Ninety-Eight
Sam and Zara followed the man. He moved with a surprising speed for his rotund stature. He led them down the stairs and across a cobbled courtyard. They turned down an alley that merged into a larger one. At the far side of which nestled a stone building that housed both a supermarket, and a small post office. Past it, the Tower of Nicholas V stood as a rich symbol of the Bank of the Vatican.
The man didn’t introduce himself or speak to either of them until he passed the Gate of St. Anna and entered the barracks of the Swiss Guard. Once there, they entered the hallway and stopped at the fourth door on the left, labeled in Latin – Swiss Guard. Minister for the Future.
The stranger opened the door, his eyes meeting Zara’s. The curve of his outer lip dipped, slightly. “Dr. Delacroix, I must beg your patience and ask you to please wait out here while I speak to Mr. Reilly, alone.”
Zara nodded her head and waited as Sam followed the man inside.
The stranger closed the door and said, “Have a seat, Mr. Reilly.”
Sam took a seat, and grinned. He’d never been on a non-tourist tour of the Vatican before. “I’m sorry. You’re the Witness to the Master Builders?”
“Among other things, yes. That is one of my many tasks.” The man offered his hand. “My real name is John Wallis
Sam took it. “Pleased to meet you.”
“I only wish it were under different circumstances.” Wallis looked around the room, as though uncomfortable about how to broach the next subject. “Good God, Mr. Reilly! Dr. Delacroix has survived!”
“Yes. You sound almost displeased, by the revelation?”
“More distressed than you could know.”
“Why?”
“The Master Builders are going to be most concerned!”
“Why?”
“Because they had planned her death for nearly four hundred years, and now you’ve just ruined it. I have half a notion to invite her inside and kill her myself, but from what I hear, the damage has already been done, and now all we can do is go forward – with whatever it was Nostradamus was trying to achieve.”
Sam stared at him. A new revelation unfolding. “You were the buyer! You were the one who paid her to find the book of Nostradamus!”
“Yes, of course.”
Sam paused, trying to make sense of the new revelation. “If you knew that Zara, finding the book of Nostradamus would send the world into chaos, why did you pay for her to find it in the first place?”
“Because she was always going to find it. Nostradamus had already foreseen that. That much was fact. We figured so long as it was going to happen, we were going to be better off paying for it to happen. That way we could at least make arrangements as the event unfolded.”
“Why didn’t you just kill her when she was a child?” Sam suggested.
“It’s not as simple as that. Nostradamus had already seen the event. That much was already determined. She was going to find his damned book, and she was going to try to change the future. But she was going to make mistakes, and in doing so, she was going to decrease the life-span of the human race.”
Sam nodded. He’d heard the argument from her own lips, previously. “So what went wrong? How did you let her escape with the book?”
“The future intervened. Luck would have it that she wasn’t in the camp when our men attacked. She escaped, and with her, she carried the book of Nostradamus with all its danger.”
Sam laughed. He was enjoying himself, despite the incredible revelations. “Nostradamus told her to run.”
John remained silent. His eyes fixed on Sam’s face, as though he was trying to decide if Sam was lying. “Nostradamus predicted this?”
“Yes. Why, does that surprise you?” Sam smiled, glad to have made a visible effect on his new opponent. “Apparently he was very good, I keep being told, although I still str
uggle to believe a word people say about his predictions.”
“My predecessor told me that Nostradamus once believed it was impossible to change the future.”
“If that’s the case, then why does it matter that Dr. Delacroix found the book, or for that matter, that she survived?”
“Because Nostradamus was wrong. It's part of Church Dogma – free will. If the future is set, then how can man have free will? But we know by the Word of God that man does have free will, so the future must be malleable, yes? The fact that Zara has survived this long is proof that the future can be changed. You see, it’s not that it can’t be changed, it’s merely a case of being difficult to change. Big changes are impossible on their own. You need to set up a new series of events, joined together like strings, to have effect on big events.”
“Zara explained it, as though we’re driving a small car and we want to knock a big truck off the road. We can’t do it on our own, but if we hit a bigger car, followed by a mini-van, followed by a small truck, eventually, we’ll send that big truck off the road.”
“Yes. A very simplistic explanation, but it will suffice for now.”
Sam asked, “Why is Dr. Delacroix so important?”
“You mean, what does she do?”
“Yes.”
“She will have a gradual effect on the future. She will change the course of a rebellion, and in doing so, stop a major war in the African continent that will inevitably spill out across the globe.”
“But we’ve put systems in place to stop the war before it’s begun!” Sam said.
“And they will work!”
“What’s so wrong about that? So we saved humanity?”
“No. You sped up its demise.” John sighed. “Humanity was on a path to cease in three hundred years – instead, it will now cease to exist by the end of this century! Thank you Mr. Reilly.”
“Why?”
“There was supposed to be a World War III. It was going to be disastrous for humanity. Billions of people were going to die. Less than a tenth of the human population would survive.”
“Why did we want that?”
“Because we’ve become the plague of our planet. We are the locusts. The planet can’t sustain our ravenous growth forever. This was supposed to be the correction. And now, we must try to avert the real disaster.”
“And what will that be?”
“We have no idea. We haven’t yet seen the vision which will explain it to us – or we would have stopped it, sooner. If it could be stopped.”
Chapter Ninety-Nine
Sam asked, “What’s your purpose in all of this?”
Wallis said, “To save mankind.”
“Sure.” Sam smiled. “But how did the Vatican get involved with Nostradamus?”
“In 1538, an offhanded remark by the then young, Michel de Nostradame, about a religious statue resulted in charges of heresy. When ordered to appear before the Church Inquisition, he wisely chose to leave Provence to travel for several years through Italy, Greece and Turkey. During his travels to the ancient mystery schools, it is believed that Nostradamus experienced a psychic awakening. During his travels in Italy, he came upon a group of Franciscan monks, identifying one as the future Pope. The monk, called Felice Peretti, was ordained Pope Sixtus V in 1585, fulfilling the prediction of Nostradamus.”
“You didn’t answer the question. Instead, you told me about Nostradamus being able to predict the future, something I’m rapidly learning he was very good at.”
“Nostradamus didn’t just predict Felice Peretti would one day be ordained as a Pope. He told him on that day, he was to start a new division from his private guard.”
“The Minister for the Future?”
“Exactly.”
“You see, Nostradamus wasn’t the only one who could see the future. He was, unfortunately, the only one who was willing to take the time and risk to change it. The Master Builders can see future events, but not in the way you assume. You see, they don’t have the vision in a lineal fashion.”
“They get them randomly?”
“Yes. Imagine this. If you were to walk into a movie cinema and watch a three minute clip at any random point in the show, how much would you know about the event being viewed?”
“Not much, unless we had a point of reference. I’ve already had this explained to me as the way Nostradamus saw the future.”
“Exactly. If you were to walk into the same movie, and see something like a newspaper the day the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima then you’d have a reference point to where the event came from. Because of this, the Master Builders require me to keep documenting when I see an event. I already have a list of all the events, but when I discover one has occurred I go to Obsidian Vault to document it. The Masters, you see, are able to reference the events through the documents stored inside the ancient almanac I’ve been keeping.”
Sam asked, “How long have you been alive?”
“No, I think you misunderstand me. I’m fifty-two years old. I’m part of one of the longest relay races ever made. Since the inception of the Holy See, members of our party have lived as part of His Holiness’s unique monitoring services.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re driven to believe a higher power is behind everything we do and see. That someone or something better than ourselves, has a divine plan for all of us. Inside the holy church, we’ve been able to witness most of the events throughout history.”
“The higher powers work for you?”
“No. I work directly for His Holiness. In that position, I receive an enormous amount of information regarding events. Those events are then cross-referenced with the ancient almanac.”
“Nostradamus wrote a second book?”
“No. One of my predecessors copied his down.”
“Is the church behind this?”
“No.”
“I think I just broke the equation,” Sam said. “But I don’t believe it.”
“What is it?”
“The Master Builders didn’t see time in a linear fashion.”
“You think they saw it all as one jumbled up mess of events?”
“Yes. Nostradamus was one of them, or a child of the Master Builders – and although he could see all the events of time, he couldn’t make any sense out of them because, to him, they all occurred simultaneously. The equation was used to form reference points to guide the viewer to make sense out of the events and their relative time.”
“But time is linear!” Sam said, “They can’t just see it from all directions: forwards, backwards, the physical universe simply doesn’t work like that!”
John said, “I agree. But then, I’m not the one who recently found a book addressed to her from four hundred plus years ago, which instructed her to find an island that hadn’t yet formed, to reach to find the answers.” He then shrugged, as though none of it mattered anymore. “I’ve read your journals, Mr. Reilly. The people you call the Master Builders we call the Time Masters.”
Sam asked, “When did they arrive?”
“Arrive? No we’re not talking about Aliens or anything like that. They have always been here. They’re here to help, to watch us and to guide us.”
“And who are you? Are you a Time Master?”
“No. I am simply a witness. They need help to make sense out of the events that are going to occur. I help by documenting them. I write the major events as they are given to me. Then the Masters are able to gain a better understanding of where they’re at. They have long periods throughout history where they leave us alone, followed by others where they need to intervene frequently.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re human. Because we’re weak. And because, left to our own, we’re like little children who want to fight and will eventually kill ourselves.”
“They’re the parents who come to intervene?”
“Kind of. All I know is if you start to see the Time Masters there’s a reason. And recently, they’ve started t
o slip. They’ve let their presence become known to others beyond our former tight circle. There have been more than a dozen events in the past two decades where a normal person, such as yourself, might put two and two together and determine someone else, entirely different than the history books would have us believe, was adjusting the strings of time.”
“So humanity is squabbling? That's what has brought them out of seclusion? Isn't that business as usual for humanity?”
“Humanity is getting close to the end.”
“Can the Masters change that?”
“They intend to try. I believe they're human beings just like us, and if humanity dies out, they will pass away as well. So they need imperatively to steer us to safety. I’m not sure they know how. I believe they intentionally brought you into this game to help. I just don’t know what you can do.”
“But am I doing something?”
“Yes. Your presence here is affecting the timeline. They know that.”
“But is it improving or worsening the event?”
“That, only time will tell.”
Chapter One Hundred
Sam leaned back into the chair. It was leather, and appeared as old as some of the medieval ruins he’d explored over the years. He shook his head. A wry smile forming on his otherwise cheerful and good-humored face, he remained silent.
John asked, “What?”
“Your name’s John Wallis?”
“Yes. What about it? It’s a common name in society?”
Sam said, “It’s not very Swiss.”
“No. My father was English, my mother was Swiss.”
Sam stared at him. Still unsure why he was even asking the question. “Do you know what the mathematician, John Wallis was most famous for?”
“I do. My father used to tell me as a child. In fact, I believe he coined the term infinity.” Wallis shrugged. “What’s so important about that?”
“Nothing.” Sam stared at him, the slightest upward curve of a smile taking place. The coincidence was just too much to be irrelevant.
“Except?” Wallis persisted.
The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 2 Page 82